If Vladimir and Estragon, the hapless protagonists of Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot,” had attempted to make a comedy sketch show, they might have ended up with something like “A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence.” This mordant, strikingly original work from Swedish director Roy Andersson is a veritable theater of the absurd, executed with technical mastery and a healthy dose of glumness.
It’s the final in the director’s trilogy of films about “being a human being,” which started with “Songs from the Second Floor” in 2000. Like the previous two installments, “A Pigeon” is a compendium of absurd skits that detail the joy, tragedy, tedium and frequent meaninglessness of human existence. Some are exasperating, others wonderful.
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